


The Price of Cuddles

by tptigger



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, M/M, Starfleet bureaucracy is a pain in the butt, Unrepentant Fluff, the future still has annoying paperwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-02 22:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16796356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptigger/pseuds/tptigger
Summary: Paul Stamets has had an annoying day--the good news is he has Hugh Culber to come home to.





	The Price of Cuddles

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as my reward to myself for winning Nanowrimo. You're all welcome. ;)

Paul signed out of his work station, glad his shift was finally over. Usually he'd stay later because he'd be mid-experiment, but today had been an administrative disaster. Not that Paul had had a choice in the matter, but when Starfleet had split him and Straal up he hadn't realized that there would be twice the paperwork.

Which meant that, since he was now technically running his own lab instead of running a lab with Straal, he had to do all of it. Straal had helped him with the original requisition forms, but of course the point of consumable supplies were that they were consumable. And anything that couldn't be synthesized--for example fertilizer and potting soil--had to be requisitioned. The most recent batch of requisition forms had all come back because apparently he'd used the wrong line for something.

As if that weren't enough, Tilly's quarterly evaluation for the Academy came back as incomplete, followed abruptly by Tilly herself wanting to show him something in the spore forrest, which turned out to be some of the samples not taking root and starting to die. He immediately showed her how to remediate the problem, but she was jumpy and asking more questions than usual.

Those were all things that would wait until tomorrow. He sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and headed for the door.

"Lt. Stamets?" Tilly asked.

He stopped, suppressing a sigh. "There's nothing else we can do for those particular samples that we haven't already done."

Tilly shifted uncomfortably, took a deep breath and started to speak very quickly. "I know sir, I just... I was supposed to have received my copy of my evaluation and..."

"That's one's on me," Paul interrupted. "It came back to me for revisions."

Tilly's face fell. "I... I shouldn't be worried should I? Is it very awful?"

Awful? "No, Cadet. Apparently 'Cadet Tilly is the best theoretical engineer on board and is doing an exemplary job' is insufficient detail for Starfleet Academy."

"I... really?"

Paul rolled his eyes. "Cadet, you've known me for three months. Have you known me to sugar coat anything in that time?"

"No, sir. Of course not. Thank you."

"No thanks are necessary, Cadet--it's only the truth." Paul softened. "Now go get some rest. We've all had a long day."

"Yes, sir. Have a good night." Tilly said and left.

Paul headed for his quarters, wanting nothing but some peace and quiet. What he really wanted was a hot bath, but the ship's bathrooms of course only had sonic showers. Why had he let Straal talk him into this nonsense again? He hated everything about Starfleet.

He palmed open the door and walked into his quarters. His nose was immediately met with the smell of tomato sauce and spices.

"Hey, babe," Hugh said, absently. Then looked up. "Are you ok? I was expecting to have to pry you away from the lab."

Ok, he hated _almost_ everything about Starfleet.

Paul rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I had to get out of there."

Hugh approached him, arms open, and Paul fell into them, resting his nose in the crook of Hugh's neck as Hugh wrapped his arms around him.

"Bad day?" Hugh worked his fingers into Paul's hair.

"Annoying day." Paul leaned into the hug. "Nothing really bad, just a lot of little things going wrong; I still don't have the hang of Starfleet paperwork and we had some sample problems, but Tilly caught those super early, so we should be able to save them."

"Anything I can help you with on the paperwork?" Hugh rubbed Paul's back in comforting circles with the flat of his hand.

"If you can look at the requisition forms and make sure I have them right this time, that would be great. The other thing is a personnel issue, so I can't show you."

Hugh started to pull away.

"Don't let go," Paul whimpered.

"Let's sit, my feet are killing me." He gently guided Paul to the couch, then took him into his arms, pulling Paul's body against his chest and resting his nose against Paul's forehead. "Can you ask Commander Saru? For help on the personnel thing I mean?"

Paul blinked. "I'll check." He leaned in closer, wrapping one arm around Hugh's shoulders and rubbing Hugh's arm with the other hand.

"Not a problem I hope?" Hugh's hand crept back up into Paul's hair, gently stroking his scalp.

"The problem is I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to do paperwork."

Hugh kissed his nose. "You're not an idiot. You're just too hyperfocused on mushrooms."

Paul rolled his eyes, but decided he didn't want to have that fight again. "Anyway, how was your day?"

"Exhausting. I ended up doing a..." He sighed. Paul knew he was figuring out how much he could say without violating patient privacy--on a ship of less than two hundred people, gossip could spread pretty quickly. "A really delicate surgery. The patient crashed twice on the table before we got her stabilized."

"Ugh. That does sound exhausting. Is she at least going to be okay?"

"Most likely." Hugh leaned his face even closer to Paul's.

Paul shifted slightly and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. "Then you did good."

Hugh leaned into Paul's arms, and Paul snuggled a little closer.

"Is the food still in thermal containers?" Paul asked.

Hugh chuckled. "I was leaving it there until I could pry you away."

"Good. Let's just not move for a little bit." Paul started making circles on Hugh's back with the palm of his hand, the back of his hand rubbing against the couch.

"I can do that." Hugh dropped his arm to Paul's back.

"My day just got a lot better." Paul relaxed against Hugh, the tension of the day finally starting to dissipate.

"Mine too."

Paul decided that if putting up with Starfleet's mischagas was the price of coming home to Hugh after a long day, then it was totally worth it.

End


End file.
